


Voldemort's Lover

by AndThatsShannii



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First War with Voldemort, Voldemort's Lover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7060000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndThatsShannii/pseuds/AndThatsShannii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort may have died during the Battle of Hogwarts, but there are many important secrets which he managed to keep. Find out how Alina Rosier fell in love with the worst wizard in history and if Voldemort is truly capable of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, unfortunately!

Lord Voldemort is dead. She had felt the absence in her heart before she had even been told. For any other person, this news would have provided joy and liberation. Alina Rosier did find the knowledge somewhat relieving. However, this meant that Tom Riddle was also lost, something which invoked an entirely different emotion. Alina lay in the foetal position on her bed, sobbing gently. Tears streamed down her cheeks and onto her duvet. She gasped for breath, pain shooting through her chest. Whether this was from her heartbreak or from her lack of oxygen she did not know. The man she had loved more than anything was dead. This time, there was no hope that he could return to her. This time he was definitely lost for good.

She knew that he had gotten what he had deserved. He had died under his own curse, just as he should have done the first time all those years ago when he dared try to kill the most innocent creature on earth: a tiny baby. She knew that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. By fearing his death by this child, he had armed Harry Potter with the tools to kill him. The moment he had forgotten that a mother’s love is the most powerful magic, Alina had prepared herself for his defeat. It did not make it any easier to accept, though.

Alina had been the only person that Tom had ever loved and he had been the one man who had driven her almost insane. She did not even know if he still did love her. She did not know if he was still capable of love now that he had let such evil consume him. There had been a time, though, when he looked at her as though she mattered. They had been lovers since they were at Hogwarts together what felt like centuries ago, and had been friends from their very first day. Even if his love had died, she was certain that his bond to her had remained. It was still impossible to process that the handsome boy whose smile she could not resist would become the most feared wizard in existence.

For a long time, she had refused to call him by the name he had adopted after he had left Hogwarts. Many people avoided it out of fear. They were never sure what his name would do to them, but many wizards did not want to make him any more real by using it. Alina, on the other hand, refused simply because to her, no matter what he did, he would always be her Tom. He would always be the charming, intelligent boy who had a way with words and an ability to worm his way into anyone’s heart. He had changed so much since the days when they were inseparable. Still, despite all his actions, Alina clung onto the bitter hope that her Tom was still there somewhere. He changed so much when they were alone. He was usually driven simply by fear and power. When he was with her, she could see the hints of the other emotions that he had successfully locked deep inside. She held the key to unlocking all these emotions, but he had become better at suppressing them and more reluctant to let her in. They both knew, though, that he had loved her at some point. That was why he had always attempted to hide her away from the world.

She stood up now, knowing that she would need to collect the body for herself in secret before Harry Potter’s side disposed of it, or worse: paraded it around the wizarding world as proof of their victory. She suspected that he had been thrown precariously on a pile of dead back at Hogwarts castle and that it was her job, as his lover, to collect it and give Tom the right send-off. Even if she was completely against his treatment of muggles, muggle-borns and wizard “sympathisers” alike, she believed that he at least deserved a farewell by someone who loved him more than anything. Even if Voldemort did not deserve that, her Tom Riddle certainly did. The Tom she knew had been slowly and painfully dying for a long time and now had been put out of his misery. The Tom of fourteen with whom she shared her first kissed deserved as much. Plus, she also needed the chance to say goodbye.

Alina turned on the spot, apparating into the old village of Hogsmeade, which she had loved to visit during her time at Hogwarts. A rush of nostalgia hit her, quickly replaced by crippling heartbreak, as she began to hurry towards the school. It was not long before she realised that all the protections placed upon the Hogwarts Castle had been broken during the battle and that she could simply apparate directly into its grounds. She turned on the spot once again and reappeared in what she believed had once been the Entrance Courtyard of the place which concealed her fondest memories.

Like her heart, it was entirely ruined. The beautiful intricate stonework which had once climbed up the walls of the courtyard had blackened and lay scattered about the floor. The imposing pillars had been blasted to a charred old tree stump. The beautiful gothic castle seemed to weep with the pain of the loss of the hundreds upon hundreds of lives it had seen today. However, the difference between her and the building was that her heart could not be mended. Over time, and with a great deal of hard work, they would be able to restore the original beauty of the castle. Her heart was broken beyond repair. There was no spell to fill the hole that Tom had left within it or the void in her life now that she would no longer be his lover. She would feel the scars of the battle long after the fighting had gone from breaking news to history, and from history to legend. She would never see her Tom Riddle again.

Other people were also mourning their losses. There was a ginger-haired mother who was clutching a man who was clearly her fallen son, holding onto him as if he were a baby once again. As if she could revive him simply by loving him. The boy, Harry Potter, was with his two friends a little way away from the others, staring at the cliffs below and talking in low voices. She knew that no one else was responsible for the death of Tom but Voldemort, yet she could not help but feel a pang of hatred shoot towards him as the three friends hugged one another warmly, overjoyed that their struggle was finally over. She despised them all for celebrating when her love was dead. There was so much to despair about. For her, it could never be over. Still, she was well aware that everything Tom had believed in was wrong.

Her already broken heart crumbled and turned to dust as she saw the body of Voldemort. For the first time in her life, she saw him in the same way that everyone else did. His eyes were still open and full of rage and malice. A small smile danced across his lipless mouth, seeming to tell her that he was anticipating the satisfaction of yet another kill. This was the first time that she had been able to see his true colours. It frightened her. He had never allowed her to witness his public persona, though she had heard many stories. He had refused to allow her to accompany him on what he called “business” and now she knew why. Strangely, she found herself somewhat consoled by this knowledge. As she thought of this, the fact that he concealed his life from her reminded her that he did have a heart. It was his soul he had shattered.

Alina could no longer stand looking into the angry eyes she could barely recognise. She placed her hand on his head and closed his eyes gently, feeling the slits he now had for lids flutter closed like cold, lifeless butterflies. Pulling out her wand and levitating his body away from all the others, she couldn’t help but feel a small flicker of hope that she could still revive him somehow, but she realised suddenly that she had failed him by attempting suicide all those years ago. If she hadn’t, she would still have been the one horcrux in existence that no one else could know about. She was unsure, however, whether she would have traded this for Voldemort continuing to cause terror and pain to all good people, magical or not, throughout the world. Conflicted, she settled for simply doing what she came to do: giving herself a sense of closure.

The fire spell caught and rapidly spread to his limbs, finally ridding all of the evidence of the terrible plague, by the name of Lord Voldemort, which had seized hold of Tom’s body for decades. The flames turned an ugly shade of green and gave off a pungent stench that Alina struggled to ignore. No matter how bad, she could not leave his body until she had paid him this last act of kindness. She quickly collected the ashes in a small urn she had conjured and prepared to make her way home, her hand resting subconsciously upon her stomach as she felt for the tiny, almost non-existent heartbeat of a child. The heir to the Slytherin throne was growing inside of her.


	2. Chapter 2

1st September 1938

Smoke was escaping from the mouth of the bright red engine of the Hogwarts Express at regular intervals, like an old man puffing gently on a thick, black pipe, as Alina Rosier pushed out of the mundane, brown brick wall of King’s Cross and found herself stumbling awkwardly onto the bright and magical platform. Older children were chattering happily, sharing their experiences from the summer and exchanging hugs and sweets. Despite the excited hubbub of the students’ conversations and the chirpy replies from the engine, Alina felt strangely on edge, her panic jarring with the casual and comfortable speech of those around her. To her, the Hogwarts Express was mocking her, hissing out snide remarks and suffocating her with its white smog, which lingered ominously around the carriages. She was sure she could feel it entering her lungs, corrupting her blood and dizzying her brain with every breath. Alarmed, she attempted to break the barrier immediately and get onto the safety of the platform, away from this poisonous vapour. She waved a quick goodbye to her mother over her shoulder and lugged her huge trunk into the entrance of one of the carriages.

Starting a new school was possibly the most terrifying experience of Alina’s life. She could not even begin to imagine what it must have been like for the wide-eyed muggle born children who had been told, just a few months before, that everything they had believed was a lie. She, however, had been brought up to anticipate this moment. Both her brother Regis and her sister Lanette had walked the halls for years, and were currently studying for some wizard exam or other. She knew this was exactly where she belonged. Still, sitting in an empty compartment of the Hogwarts Express, she could not help but feel her heart thrashing wildly in her throat, threatening to make her sick as she remembered the words of her stern mother. Don’t let us down. How could she not? She was nothing like her athletic sister or her intelligent brother. She was nothing. Just a surname.

For her whole life, she had experienced the muggle education system, her mother stating that it was to “build character”. Alina did not believe this. She knew it was because she simply was too uninterested in her children to bother teaching them to read and write. No. She had had a proud, esteemed job in the Wizengamot, dolling out other wizards’ sentences. What kind of character was this she was developing? It certainly did not feel like a good thing. No. Her mother was simply providing Alina with yet another of her sentences. This was not a sign that she cared, making her feel odd and displaced within the Wizarding World. Let her go back to muggle school and just be a normal girl. Let her have normal friends and a normal family. She would give anything to just sit and read and read and to imagine that magic was real. To not know.

Pressing her head against the cool glass of the window, Alina tried to cool her breathing. To relax. Of course, she knew she was overreacting. There was nowhere else in this world where she was expected to be except Hogwarts. She watched the condensation ebb and flow from her mouth, like a dragon puffing out a sea of smoke. Her pale skin squashed against this icy surface until she was so cold, she felt the dragon’s scales form on her arms. Even the glass here felt magical. Somehow it was colder than all the glass in the muggle world. It crept up on her, grabbing and tickling mercilessly. Somehow it felt alive.

Interrupting her thoughts was a boy, as pale as her but many times better looking. His hair and his eyes were as dark as that expression he wore, knitting his eyebrows together and staring through her as though he knew all her worst secrets. He approached a seat opposite her and sat, giving no indication that he realised she was there. Instead, he continued to stare unblinkingly, ignoring her presence and chewing on his lip gently. It seemed like she had already met one person who wanted nothing to do with her for reasons she could not explain. The way he looked at her, passive and emotionless, made her feel vulnerable. She hugged her legs, squeezing them to her chest defensively and pretending that she was alone.

The train kicked into motion, heaving under the weight of many students and many trunks. The smoke billowed out enthusiastically and Alina felt a lurch in her stomach. Now they were off. There was no going back to her muggle world with her muggle friends. She would have to make new friends, and she had already gotten off to a poor start. The other children spoke of the wonders of Hogwarts: of the spells and the portraits and the food. There was nothing else on Alina’s mind but her friends. Her old, dear friends who would soon forget about her. She would not forget about them. She did not think of her mother, who had punished her by sending her to this place, or her siblings, who had been banished here too, or even the possibilities in front of her.

On the platform, a slender, proud looking mother shed a single tear, silently wishing her daughter good luck and thinking all the gentle, tender things she could never say.


	3. Chapter 3

Alina squinted her eyes shut as the train plunged into its first dark tunnel of the journey. It veered left slightly, and she found her cheek once again pasted onto the cold glass of the window to her right, licked by its wet surface. It had been twenty minutes since the Hogwarts Express had left the platform, and she was still desperately trying to pretend that she was alone. She did not want to be the one to break the awkward silence that was thick in the air, pressing on her brain and leaving her feeling desperately agitated. The sun attacked her face once again as the train escaped the darkness and the cities rolled past at a dizzying pace, grey and black with the occasional splash of green garden or park. Smoke continued to billow out of the mouth of the engine and trail behind, stretching its tendrils out to kiss the clear, blue sky. It was a glorious September day, and usually Alina would have been out with her muggle friends, basking in the warm sun and sharing unimportant secrets in hushed voices. Now, she was trapped in a magical box on a magical train for the whole day, forced to see the beauty of the outside taunting her with enthusiasm. Typical of the British weather, it had been raining all week until then, when the sun finally decided to show its face. She could almost be sure that this fleeting sun would fade as quickly as it arrived, and she would be met with little else than rain and dark clouds tomorrow.

Pretty soon, the grey buildings blurred in her mind until she could feel herself falling into a deep, grey sleep and was dreaming about the Hogwarts her siblings had boasted about. She was on a rollercoaster, facing downwards above the Castle at an alarming angle, ready to plummet downwards into the golden doors. She could feel her heart thudding dangerously, threatening to pop right out of her chest and fall hundreds of feet to the grassy ground below. There was no way out. She would be forced into the building against her will, before she was ready to say goodbye to all she had known. Teetering on the edge, she could not help but look around, hands flailing in search for someone else on the coach with her. She was alone. Not a single soul could be seen. Everyone had left her at the very front, facing the fall all on her own. Her heart lurched upwards as she fell… and then woke with a start.

There in front of her was the boy, still staring as if she did not exist. That was the last thing she needed at that moment, to feel so helpless and unwanted when the whole of mankind had abandoned her on that rollercoaster. Suddenly, she felt her anger bubble and boil over, escaping her mouth in a stream of words.

“Are you going to stop staring any time soon? Or can you at least blink? You’re scaring me.” She spat the words in a frustrated haze, leaving both her and the boy reeling from the shock. He did blink. He blinked uncomfortably and cleared his throat. Alina simply lowered her head in shame at her sudden outburst. _Gosh, I sound like my sister_ , she scolded herself gulping hard, _how will I ever make friends if this is the way I act?_   She opened her mouth to apologise, but could not find her voice. How could she say she was sorry for something she had just said seconds before? How could she begin to explain that this sudden aggression was from a nightmare about going to a magical school? Saying these things out loud would simply confirm how ridiculous she was for being afraid. She tried once more to croak out a shaky apology.

“I’m sorry,” the boy had beaten her to it, “I suppose the staring must be quite intimidating.” His voice was sweet and calm, as he pronounced each word with caution, as if she were a bomb that were about to explode. For the second time, Alina noticed how handsome the boy was. His hair flopped in front of his hair just enough for him to look rebellious and intriguing without seeming scruffy and unrefined. His mouth, which had been fixed in a straight line before, had turned the edges upwards into a small, rueful smile. Was It possible that she was not the only one who was terrified? She stretched out a trembling hand for him to shake, as she had seen her own mother do countless times.

“I’m Tom Riddle.” His hand seemed warm and powerful as he gripped hers. Her hand felt oddly both cold and sweaty, and she quickly slipped it away and wiped her palm on her shirt, leaning back in the seat. “Despite my weirdness before,” he continued, “I hope we can become good friends.”

Her heart fluttered. A friend? Already? The one thing she had feared about going to Hogwarts was being separated from her muggle friends only to find that none of the wizard children wanted to know her. She had not been given the time to meet any new people before she was extracted from the muggle world and deposited onto the train on the way to Magic. Now she could see how stupid her fears were. Now she could enjoy the rollercoaster with her new friend Tom.

In the window of the carriage, the cities had disappeared suddenly, abruptly. The grey, unforgiving stone was replaced by green hills and translucent waters. The sun shone over herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and the occasional old house dotted the scenery. The train continued to puff onwards, chugging reliably towards the Castle that would hold her new fate and, for the first time since she had boarded its red carriages, she did not feel afraid.


	4. Chapter 4

Alina peered out of her carriage window to see the dying sun give its final twinkle in the distance. It was a beautiful sight. Unlike the cities she was used to, there were no pale, white street lamps or glittering windows to throw the sky into an eternal daytime. Instead, there was certainty: black and white, day and night, witch and muggle.

Surrounding her was a mound of empty sweet wrappers and, in the corner of the carriage, as far away from Tom and herself as possible, a few abandoned blood-flavoured lollipops, which they had dared each other to try, but could barely stomach. Tom had quickly fallen asleep afterwards, snoozing noiselessly with his head resting against the carriage window so that it lolled about with every movement of the train. Alina threw a chocolate frog rapper at him, hitting him on the forehead with a hollow _thwack_ and causing him to wake with a start. He stood up rapidly. The crinkling, multi-coloured papers glinting in the light as they tumbled from his lap. Alina could not help but laugh at the wide-eyed expression on his face as he attempted not to seem alarmed.

“Tom,” she covered her mouth to hide the giggles, “we should probably get changed soon. From what my brother and sister told me, you’re supposed to get into your uniform when you’re still on the train.” The sinking sun had brought her back to reality. After hours of joking loudly and dreaming up the adventures they would have, Alina once again felt that sinking, terrified feeling in the pit of her stomach. This time, however, she did not feel so alone. This time, she could also imagine all the wonderful possibilities. Her muggle friends had left her mind for the first time since the beginning of the summer holidays.

She left the carriage shortly afterwards, giving Tom time to change inside whilst she found space in one of the vacant toilets. Students had suddenly began moving hurriedly around the train, busying themselves like a colony of ants, some in billowing black robes and some still in their casual attire.  Curtains were swiftly drawn within carriages after faces peeped out accusingly into the corridor, and one or two of the bolder boys were ripping off their shirts in the middle of the train, sparking both laughs and groans from their peers. Everyone seemed to be collectively holding their breaths, waiting for their first sight of Hogsmeade rolling into view, desperately attempting to hop into their school shoes before the Hogwarts Express eased itself to a stop. Slipping on her Hogwarts robes for the first time since Diagon Alley, she finally felt prepared to become a witch. She unpacked her wand from within its concealment, pulling at the lid of the box until she could hear the hiss of cardboard and it popped off satisfyingly. Slipping this thing into its holster within her robes made her feel dangerous and different. She straightened her back, and exhaled, feeling the soft, new clothing giving her gentle encouragement.

Of course, despite what she had stupidly believed, she was not the only one who felt lost on this train. All these students shared the same wide-eyed look of wonder and worry. All these students had been bought too-big robes, and had been told light-heartedly by their parents that they would “grow into them”.  She realised very quickly, as she was making her way back through the maze of abandoned clothing in the corridors, that she was no different from any other student in their first year. All of them would be in the same boat soon, anxious to discover which house they belonged to. Now, as she met a few of their eyes through the protective glass of the compartments, she gave them sheepish smiles.

Sliding her own compartment open again, she was met with Tom’s practiced calmness. She was certain that he, too, was terrified, but he was reluctant to show this to her.

“Well…” she brushed her hands on her fresh, new robes awkwardly, struggling to think of something to say, “we’ll be in the castle very soon. I bet it will be huge.”

Tom nodded absent-mindedly, uninterested in the size of the castle. What would the children be like there? Would they be different from the muggles in the orphanage? What was the Wizard World really like? An awkward silence followed. Alina stood by the door, eyes glazed over, staring deep into space. Suddenly they had nothing to say to one another. Suddenly the thought of the castle and the magic they were expected to do pressed on their hearts and they could no longer engage in their casual, easy conversations.

Tom broke the silence finally. “Your family are wizards, aren’t they?” when he was met with a small nod from Alina, he continued enthusiastically, “What did you do when you were younger? Tell me about it.” What if the children from wizard parents were given an edge over him, being taught magic since before they could walk? What if he would look stupid in comparison with his lack of knowledge?

“There isn’t really much to say about them. Well, at least I don’t think there is.” Alina smiled at him, moving to sit down opposite him in the carriage. She looked out the window, suddenly afraid to meet Tom’s eyes. “I went to a muggle school before this. So did my brother and sister. The rest of my family thought my mother was insane when she said she was going to send us there. My family go on about this thing called _blood purity_. I don’t really understand it, if I’m honest. Muggles are no different to us in my eyes. My mother said she put us in muggle school so we’d understand the world better.”

“But what does that mean… muggle?” Tom’s eyebrows had shifted, almost unnoticeably, into slight confusion.

“Oh! That’s the word that we use to describe people who can’t do magic. Normal people. Most of them don’t know that this world exists – and they think anyone who speaks about magic is mental.”

Before Tom had time to ask her any more questions, the train had hissed to a complete stop at a station labelled “Hogsmeade”. Smoke once again billowed around the Hogwarts Express in abundance, making the greying man who was waiting for them seem ominous. _Welcome to Hogwarts_ , Alina thought. She giggled. Could they possibly send a scarier man? He may have been old, but his calloused hands and bulging muscles could be seen even from her position, pressed against the window of the carriage.

Students began to pour out of the train, filling the platform with billowing black robes. The older students were speaking excitedly amongst themselves and walking casually away from the platform and further into the station. There was a slight breeze when Tom and Alina stepped outside, and goose bumps littered their skin. The large, muscular man introduced himself as Ogg gruffly explaining that he was the Hogwarts groundskeeper before coughing out “first-years follow me” in his deep, scratchy voice and disappearing further into the smoke. Realising after a few seconds that they were, in fact, first years, Tom and Alina hurried forwards, attempting to find where Ogg had disappeared to and hoping that he was not there to abduct them.

They walked for what seemed like hours, Alina’s heart thumping in her chest, trying desperately to abandon her and escape the grandeur of the castle which was slowly coming into sight. She craned her neck, almost feeling the tingle of magic from inside. The warm, yellow light seemed deceptive: a piece of cheese set in a trap to lure in all the first-year mice for some sort of excruciating torture. She had read about medieval castles at school. She knew all too well that they were sights of both beauty and torture. Now here she was in front of one, lips chapped and pursed in terrified anticipation. The turrets looked back down at her with a kind of regal calmness, daring her to enter inside, to become what she was truly meant to become. She was unsure if the unmoving stone or her mother’s expectations frightened her more.

Finally, they came to some dingy boats, which floated still on the glassy surface of a black lake. The clumsily made hunks of wood looked as if they could barely support one person, let alone the four wide-eyed students Ogg was ordering into each. Alina managed to press herself as closely to Tom as possible in and attempt to ensure that they would enter a boat together. As they slipped inside one as far away from Ogg as possible, it rocked dangerously, threatening to throw them into the water’s eerie surface. The ripples of movement did not resonate in the lake. It was as glossy and uninviting as ever, as though nothing could penetrate its dead face – or nothing which did would ever come back up to the living.

The two girls who slipped in alongside them were wholly different and apparently not friends at all. The first was strikingly beautiful with silvery-blonde hair which cascaded down her back, almost black eyes and a sharp-pointed nose, which was turned upwards as she pretended they did not exist. The second had mousy ringlets held together in a messy pony tail and resembled a chipmunk with her rounded cheeks and protruding front teeth. She wet her lips with a large clumsy tongue and smiled at them with desperate, pleading eyes, presumably in an attempt to make the journey across the lake more bearable for herself. She stared longingly at another boat, where there were four other students speaking in animated voices. Their glances in her direction were apologetic and full of pity. They mouthed a few words to before the boats sprang to life, with Ogg at the front, and made their way towards the imposing castle.

This earned a collective swoon from, presumably, the muggle-born students and some amused, knowing smiles from those who had been warned frequently about the magic Hogwarts possessed. The blonde girl in their boat shook her head and made a _tsk_ noise impatiently. “What do you expect?” she mumbled, “This _is_ a magical school.”

Again it was Tom who broke the silence which followed. They were about halfway along the lake when he erected himself in the boat sharply and turned to look straight into Alina’s eyes. “You mentioned something earlier – blood purity? What is it?” He had grabbed onto her sleeve and was tugging, urgency written all over his handsome features

“Why does it matter so much to you?” Alina laughed to hide her alarm.

Shrugging, Tom said, “I don’t know. I never did know my parents. Maybe if I know something about wizards then I will be able to find out a little bit more about them.

 “I don’t know Some wizards pride themselves on being wizards, I guess. They pride themselves on having an all-magical ancestry and don’t want to marry people who aren’t like them. They think that being magical is what makes them extraordinary. It’s silly if you ask me.”

“And do you think…” Tom’s voice faltered, “…do you think that my parents were wizards like me? Were they extraordinary too?”

“Well,” the blonde girl spoke to them for the first time. Her voice was slow, high-pitched and extremely unimpressed. “What is your name?”

“Tom. Tom Riddle”

She laughed a cruel, short laugh. “Riddle isn’t a pure-blood name. You’re probably just another nasty, common mudblood.”

“A _muggle-born_.” Alina piped in, eyeing the blonde girl uncomfortably, “We don’t say mudblood. It’s a disgusting word. She means someone whose parents were muggles.”

The mousy-haired chipmunk-looking girl turned to face Alina and Tom, edging away from the blonde girl slowly. “I’m like that. My parents are just normal people. We had no clue that magic even existed before I got that letter.”

Tom scowled. Were all the muggles and their children so… repulsive? He did not like the muggles back in his orphanage. He had never fit in there. Now here he was at magical school and he already felt as though he were being treated much better. His mother’s name, Merope Gaunt, pressed into his skull, but he daren’t ask if she was a witch. He did not want to destroy his one hope yet.


End file.
